Teachnology Statement

As a second-language teacher I understand that acquiring a second language is a slow process. I believe that second-language acquisition should be modeled similarly to child-language acquisition in that language learners can be only expected to produce the language once they have been provided with sufficient input. I understand that the most crucial aspect of learning a language is having sufficient exposure to begin forming an underlying foundation of the language and how it works. I believe that activities for second-language learning do not need to be production-based but rather comprehension-based.

I believe that practicing communicative language teaching promotes the acquisition of a second language. Communicative language teaching focuses on meaning-based activities that work toward goals and emphasize the importance of interaction and communication of information. The communicative language teaching approach greatly impacts the way I create my lessons and helps to make the most of classroom time. This approach aligns with my beliefs that an emphasis should be placed on the ability to communicate rather than on accuracy of language use. I am committed to providing my students with knowledge and desire to pursue and use the language outside of the classroom and the communicative language teaching approach helps to reach this goal by building a foundation for effectively communicating information and providing a practical knowledge of the language that will be useful in a real-world context.

I believe that the dynamic of a second-language classroom is very important in order to promote a certain level of comfort that is necessary when learning a second-language. I understand that learning a second-language can be anxiety inducing and I believe that having a comfortable classroom environment helps to reduce the anxiety involved in sharing thoughts and ideas with others so as to counterbalance the anxiety of working with a unfamiliar language.

I believe that learners of a second-language strongly benefit from exposure to the language in an abundance of formats. It is important to showcase the language through many mediums and I especially believe that exposing my students to Spanish through the same mediums that they already use in their everyday lives will promote them to make more meaningful connections. I believe that technology plays an important role in language learning because it can bring the language into the classroom in different contexts than textbook learning would allow. I believe that it is important to encourage students to pursue learning about the aspects of the language and culture that coincide with their own interests, such as film or music. I encourage this by providing them with many mediums of exploring these different aspects of the language, and encouraging them to share their discoveries with the class. I believe that this collaborative environment that integrates technology and promotes the communicative language teaching ideology will provide students with the desire to continue learning the language, and foundation that will allow them to succeed.